This invention pertains to a method for utilizing a certain type of collating machine. Various types of collating machines are known. In one type, the material to be collated is placed in a single input bin and the collated copies are routed to a plurality of output hoppers in a circular order. In this type of machine, there will be, for example, twenty output hoppers and one input bin. In the event that a user wishes to collate six sets with each set containing five pages, thirty sheets of paper will be introduced into the machine's input bin, the sheets being arranged in five groups with each group containing six identical copies. The machine will be set to utilize only six of the twenty output hoppers. When the machine is operated, each of the first six copies will be routed to a corresponding one of the output hoppers, and after the last such page is routed to the last such hopper, the first copy of the next group will be routed to the first hopper and so on, until the thirty sheets which were originally placed in the input bin are distributed into six hoppers, each hopper containing exactly five sheets. Thus, with a collating machine of this sort, the sets are delivered to individual output hoppers.
However, there also exists another type of machine which utilizes a plurality of input bins and only a single output hopper. In this type of machine, the sheets to be collated are evenly distributed between all the input bins, and the machine operates to select one sheet from each bin in a predetermined sequence and to route that sheet into the input hopper. In this latter type of machine, it would be possible, for example, to place six identical copies in each of five input bins and to turn the machine on. In this latter case, the machine would automatically select a single sheet from the first bin and route it to the hopper, and would then proceed to select sheets from the second, third, fourth, and fifth bins and route them into the output hopper in order. Thus, the output bin would contain thirty sheets divided into six sets of five pages each. This sets could then be stapled together and distributed after the collation process.
In a patent application under the name of Michael Maul having Ser. No. 894,334 and filed Apr. 7, 1978, there is set forth a method for utilizing this latter type of collating machine to collate copies even when the number of pages desired in each final set does not correspond with the number of bins in the machine. This method utilizes repeated operations in which the collated stack of sheets which is routed into the hopper is redivided and re-placed into the bins as many times as is required in order to arrive at a collated stack which has the requisite number of sets, with all the pages within a given set being in order. However, when such a method is utilized, it is very difficult for an operator of the machine to determine the points at which the collated stack of paper in the hopper should be divided for replacing the contents of the collated stack into the bins. These points of division are critical, inasmuch as an error in which only one sheet is improperly re-placed in a bin will cause the entire collating process to become scrambled.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a method for utilizing this latter type of machine for such collating operations, which method would be so designed as to enable an operator to easily ascertain the proper division points for the collated stack of paper in the hopper in order to accurately re-divide the collated stack into the proper number of groups of sheets for re-introduction into the bins. Moreover, it would be desirable to provide a method which would additionally tell an operator of the machine when the collated stack appearing in the hopper is in fact properly collated, so that an unnecessary and undesirable extra division of the sheets in the collated stack is avoided.